Founded in 2008, the Great Lakes Energy Institute (GLEI) is an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to catalyzing breakthroughs in energy sustainability that address the most pressing problems facing our world. Located in Cleveland, Ohio and housed within the Case School of Engineering, we empower our faculty, students and partners to expand knowledge, deepen understanding, and create innovative and sustainable energy solutions. Click here to learn more about us, or about our research and platforms.

Research of CWRU faculty Professor Kenneth Loparo, Assistant Professor Marija Prica, Adjunct Professor Amirhossein Sajadi, and their co-authors Luka and Vladmir Strezoski has been featured in Advanced Science News discussing the future of the power grid and the bigger roles of renewable energy resources.

Dr. Robert Savinell, George S. Dively Professor of Engineering and GLEI Advisory Board Member, along with the Breakthrough Electrolytes for Energy Storage (BEES) Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) that he directs is featured in the Department of Energy’s Frontiers in Energy Research Fall Newsletter.

To read the more about the impact of the BEES EFRC and other transformative centers, visit here.

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office awarded $1.35 million to a team of solar energy researchers at Case Western Reserve University to continue working on increasing the efficiency and lifetime of photovoltaic modules to 50 years. The research efforts are being led by Roger French, the Kyocera Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department and head of the SDLE Research Center.

Boundary Laboratories located in Cleveland, Ohio, took home a $5,000 prize for their award winning pitch at the 2018 TransTech Energy Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Prince Ghosh, founder of Boundary Labs, said that, “Presenting and competing in the National Energy Technology Laboratory sponsored TransTech Energy Conference was an amazing experience.”.

Adam Maraschky, a chemical engineering PhD student and Great Lakes Energy Institute (GLEI) ThinkEnergy fellow, and his advisor Dr. Rohan Akolkar, the F. Alex Nason Professor and faculty director of GLEI, have recently published a paper on lithium-metal batteries in the Journal of Electrochemical Society.

On October 11, 2018, Siemens and Case Western Reserve announced the launch of a new Siemens Digital Grid Lab, operated by Dr. Marija Prica, as part of the new academic partnership to give students the tools to understand, navigate, and operate the nation's energy grid.

Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Burcu Gurkan, was awarded a $600,000 grant from NASA to improve current CO2 capture and storage systems towards future long-distance space flights. This research will accelerate the development of efficient capturing of CO2, which can then be converted to other resources, such as oxygen.

The Great Lakes Energy Institute is pleased to congratulate Dr. Rohan Akolkar on his promotion to Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Akolkar is the Faculty Director of the Great Lakes Energy Institute.

Dr. Rohan Akolkar received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Chemical Engineering. After working for Intel Corporation, Dr. Akolkar returned to CWRU as an Associate Professor and the Associate Director of the Electronics Design Center. Dr. Akolkar’s research in electrodeposition and electrochemistry reaches a broad range of applications, including batteries, semiconductor devices, electrometallurgy, and corrosion protection. Dr. Akolkar’s research contributions have been recognized with the F. Alex Nason Professorship and he is an Ohio Eminent Scholar in Advanced Energy Research.